


Miss Testone

by dovingbird



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: Digital Sex, F/M, Teacher/Student, au: college, handjob
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-24
Updated: 2014-01-24
Packaged: 2018-01-09 22:07:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1151347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dovingbird/pseuds/dovingbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. When Phil’s college vocal instructor, Elise, takes a particular interest in his growth as a musician, his own feelings begin to deepen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Miss Testone

**Author's Note:**

> Response to a prompt: "Phillip is a student, Elise a young college teacher. Forbidden love."
> 
> I am notoriously obsessed with student/teacher relationships, which is probably why I churned out all 13,000+ words of this in a day, and as a former vocal major I can honestly say that this is one of my favorite fanfics that I've ever written. Every event in here, leading up to the performance, is inspired by real events, whether they happened to me or someone else.

The music building was relatively easy to find, but Phil felt like he'd been there for hours, going back and forth between countless offices with mountains of forms. First, they'd given him the wrong form. Then they'd sent him to the wrong office on the farthest side of the building. When he finally _got_ the right form, it took him ten minutes just to go from teacher to teacher to try to find success. There was no doing. There was only one office left, one teacher, and he was feeling a little desperate. He paused for a moment outside the door, his hand tightening on the one strap of his backpack slung over his shoulder, and tried to think of a back-up plan. There weren't many. Either he got this class or he'd be stuck with figuring out a tuba or something, and that didn't exactly sound right up his alley.  
  
Finally he decided he just had to bite the bullet. He reached for the doorknob, but hesitated. God, what if this professor wasn't even in her office? That would suck. Images of dancing tubas marched through his mind, and he immediately lifted his fist and knocked.  
  
"Come in!" a female voice shouted, muffled pretty spectacularly through the walls. It was nice soundproofing, Phil absently noticed, perfect for a vocal teacher trying to teach her students how to belt.  
  
He opened the door and peered in. The first thing he noticed was how tiny it was. All the other offices were at least twice as big as this one, weren't they? It barely fit the furniture that was shoved haphazardly inside. And God, it was dark. There were no windows. The bright white lights embedded in the ceiling tiles were off, and instead the only illumination came from a soft lamp sitting on top of a piano that was shoved against the wall. Frames covered each wall, filled with playbills, recital posters, and, finally, the obligatory diploma on the wall perpendicular to a desk. There was a woman writing at the desk, her hair glowing in a halo from the gentleness of the lightbulb. "Miss Testone?"  
  
She glanced up, peeking through a curtain of blonde curly hair. "Guilty as charged." She used the end of her pen to nudge a few curls away, to tuck them behind her ear. "Unless you're a bill collector, which makes Miss Testone's office down the other hall. Walk slow." Her lips tugged into a little smile. "Gives me good getaway time."  
  
She looked so much younger than he thought she would. All the other music teachers were a little more haggard, wrinkly, or, in the worst case, tanned orange and clearly balding under their forcefully spiked-up hair, just clinging to their last few years of being hip and desirable. But this woman, she looked like she could be just a few years older than him. He was so surprised by it that he forgot to laugh at her dry tone and instead just cleared his throat and moved forward. "Hey, I, uh...I wanna know if I can get your signature on this form."  
  
"Bring it here." He did. She studied it, tapping her pen quietly on the edge of the desk. "Elective private vocal lessons for Phil Phillips, huh?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Quite a name." She smiled, and he tried to figure out if she was teasing him, if he should be annoyed because of her lack of originality. "What year are you?"  
  
"Senior. It's my last semester coming up; graduating in December. I'm doing Engineering Technology, but I need that last elective credit and all, so..."  
  
"Mm." She nodded. "So what made you pick me?"  
  
Phil hesitated. "...well, all the other teachers are full."  
  
He half-expected her to throw her pen at him, but instead she just chuckled and shook her head. "All right, that's fair." She scribbled her name down, signing off on the class. "Half-hour, right?"  
  
"Yes ma'am."  
  
"You already got your schedule squared away? We could go ahead and set a time if you want."  
  
Phil shrugged. "Yeah, sure."  
  
"Have a seat."  
  
He glanced down at the large couch branching off from her desk. Little beaded pillows peppered across it, each one in a different color, all striking him as exotic. He had the feeling that if he sat, _really_ sat, he'd be so comfortable he'd never want to get up again, so he settled for perching right on the edge, dropping his backpack to the floor beside him.  
  
Miss Testone rifled through a file before she made a soft sound of affirmation and pulled out a chart. "Here we go. Just pick whatever's best and put your name down."  
  
Phil studied it. He was shocked at the number of available spots, how only two students were signed up thus far, but it seemed maybe a little rude to point out that this woman wasn't exactly the most popular person on campus.  
  
"If you're having trouble finding a good spot between your classes, I can always pencil in a few more timeslots."  
  
This time he definitely caught the dryness. He looked up and gave a quiet, almost nervous chuckle. "Sorry, I-"  
  
"It's okay." She leaned back in her chair and smiled again. She seemed quite taken to smiling, he realized. "My main Vocal Performance students don't sign up for times until the start of the semester. The bureaucrats that run this department are always switching class times around, canceling ones they don't like, all that. Takes all of Winter or Summer break just for them to get their crap together."  
  
Phil's eyes widened. "Oh." All the other teachers seemed fiercely loyal to the department. Such honesty was a little shocking.  
  
Miss Testone shrugged again. "It happens. So. Have you done much singing in the past?" She lifted a hand, waved it dismissively through the air. "No right or wrong answers. I take anybody anytime. Just need to know what you're looking for in the lessons, whether you're looking for a thirty-minute waste of time or if you actually want to learn something."  
  
More honesty just tossed out there, like a challenge. Phil felt his spine straightening a little more. "I do some singing, yeah. Guitar's a little more my style, but I sing too. Done some performing back home and all that."  
  
"Where's that?"  
  
"Georgia. Leesburg."  
  
"Never heard of it."  
  
He chuckled. "Most people haven't, 'less they live right there beside it. It's a couple of hours south of Atlanta."  
  
She nodded. "Cool. So guitar. Why not take guitar elective lessons instead?"  
  
"I thought about it. Really did. But, I mean...I already know so much about guitar, you know? Now, I don't wanna say I know _everything,_ 'cuz I sure don't, but I kind of think I'd be bored stiff. I'd like something a little new."  
  
And there was this American Idol thing he was thinking about doing maybe next year. That too. But just thinking about admitting that made him shift in his seat.  
  
Miss Testone nodded again, offering another slow smile. "Well, that's good enough for me." She leaned forward a little, peering at the piece of paper. "You find a good time?"  
  
"What? Oh, yeah." He scribbled his name down. "Yeah, this is fine."  
  
"Cool." She tugged the paper away from him and considered it. "Well, Mr. Phillips, unless you have any questions, I guess I'll see you next semester. Lessons start the second week of classes."  
  
Phil shuffled to his feet and grabbed his backpack again. "Yeah, that sounds good."  
  
"It was nice meeting you." Another bright smile. He couldn't help but return it as he ducked his head and hurried out of her office.  
  
  
~~~  
  
  
He didn't even think of his vocal lessons again until classes were getting ready to start. There wasn't any reason to. The break was caught up in sending out graduation invitations, making sure all his credits were squared away, getting the last textbooks he'd ever need, and all that. A voice lesson didn't require a book, after all. In fact, he didn't have a clue _what_ they required. Scouring the website didn't give him any ideas, and while he saw the bookstore had plenty of music in stock for specific choral classes, there wasn't anything there to give him a clue about his lessons.  
  
He ended up being about ten minutes early to his first lesson, but this time there was a piece of paper on the door, something cheaply thrown together in Excel to display all the students and the times they'd chosen. She hadn't been lying. The page was full-up with names now. Some chick named Giselle, apparently, was in there right now, blowing the roof off the place, and he plopped down on the bench outside Miss Testone's office to wait his turn.  
  
When fifteen minutes passed and the chick was still singing, he wrinkled a brow and sauntered to the door. That was kind of rude, wasn't it? Them bleeding into his lesson like that? Didn't matter that this girl kicked ass, that she was great to listen to. He was paying for these classes, dammit. Phil knocked on the door, preparing to give the enterprising young songstress a glare, and the singing suddenly cut off just before Miss Testone called for him to come in.  
  
He opened the door, but the second he did all he saw was his teacher sitting at the piano. He hesitated.  
  
"Phil! Come in." Miss Testone grinned at him and waved her hand, gesturing for him to enter, and he did, but only after glancing around to see if he was missing some girl hiding behind the door or something. "Get caught in traffic?"  
  
"Huh? Naw, I, uh...I thought you were with a student," he said slowly. "Didn't wanna interrupt."  
  
She had the good grace to look a little sheepish as she glanced away and chuckled. "Oh. Sorry about that. No, Giselle decided she wanted to change her time, so I had a free half hour. Figure I might as well get some practice in myself." She hopped up from the piano and made her way to her desk, where she started going through a folder, and Phil couldn't help but watch her closely. Listening to those notes scrape the ceiling made him look at her in a different light. Maybe a more appreciative one. At least he knew that she knew what she was doing. "I still perform here and there, and I got a gig coming up, so I wanted to make sure I had everything ironed out pretty well before I get with the band."  
  
He quirked a brow. "You got a band?"  
  
"Nah, it's a house band, but there's pretty cool guys." She pulled out a form and passed it to him. "Hey, can you fill this out for me real quick?"  
  
It was standard information regarding emergencies and everything else. He sat on the couch and started the process.  
  
"So. Phil." Miss Testone sat in her squeaky desk chair and crossed her legs, sticking a lethal-looking stiletto out into the open air. "What're your goals for your lessons?"  
  
He gave a shrug as he filled out his cell phone number and e-mail address. "Don't know, to be honest. I know your vocal performance majors got like recitals and stuff to look forward to, but I'm not gonna have one of those."  
  
"What do you hope to get out of them, then? What am I here to do for you?"  
  
Phil hesitated. He tapped his eraser against his bottom lip. "I guess I just...wanna get good. I wanna be able to be as good at singing as I am at guitar. Maybe play some shows and stuff down here."  
  
"Is that _all_ you wanna do?"  
  
He hesitated longer, doing so under the pretense of finishing the form, but he had to finish eventually, and when he did he sighed. "I mean...look, I love music."  
  
Miss Testone nodded encouragingly.  
  
"I really do. I eat, sleep, and breathe that stuff. But you can't just make a life like that these days without some crazy serendipity or fate or something." Phil handed the form over, but couldn't look her in the eye. "And I dunno if I'm good enough to even get noticed."  
  
"So your goal is to get noticed."  
  
He bit his bottom lip. "I guess."  
  
Miss Testone sighed softly through her nose before leaning forward. "All right, look, Phil...I wanna help you. I do. But I can only help you if you're gonna be completely honest with me about everything, okay?" She quirked a brow when he finally met her eyes. "If I suggest a song for you to do and you hate it, I wanna know. If I'm riding your ass way too hard, then tell me. And if one vocal exercise is helping you more than another, then I wanna hear that too. That's the fastest way to grow." She reached behind her, tapped the diploma hanging on the wall. "Look, this is my first year teaching here. I only graduated from this place, this same university and program, about five years ago, and that means I'm giving you an advantage. I don't have the same experience that all the other teachers do, the ones that've been here for ten or fifteen years, but I _do_ remember what it's like. I've been around this block. So I need you to trust me when I say I want you to help me help you." And then a pause. "...does that make any sense?"  
  
He nodded so it wouldn't look like he was just staring at her like a dumbass.  
  
She grinned. "Good. Now then. Did you bring anything you wanna work on?"  
  
He rubbed the back of his neck. "I, uh...I didn't know if I _was_ supposed to bring anything. What do I need?"  
  
She considered. "Well...are you planning on hiring an accompanist?"  
  
His eyes widened.  
  
"From what you say, you might be okay on a guitar, but...I don't know. I wanna see you behind one, hear how you do, before I say if that's okay or not." She winced. "No offense, but a lot of kids here say they can accompany themselves, but they really don't have a good understanding of the instrument."  
  
"I do, though," he said. "I've been playing for years."  
  
"Fine. Then prove it to me." Another smile. "Bring your guitar next time, and a chart. Some lyrics, too. I wanna be able to follow along."  
  
He huffed out a little sigh, but nodded. "All right."  
  
She glanced at her clock on the computer. "Well, we've only got about ten minutes left. I'm sorry I ate up your lesson." She looked at him again, but his pride was miffed enough that he pretended not to notice, acted like he was looking at the playbills on the wall or something. "Do you wanna run through some exercises, or do you just wanna hit the ground running next week?"  
  
"I'll do that," he drawled as he came to his feet and grabbed his backpack again. "Sounds good."  
  
"I'll see you then."  
  
~~~  
  
  
Miss Testone gave a thoughtful nod. "All right. I take it back. You can accompany yourself."  
  
Phil couldn't help but give a prideful little smirk as he looked down at his guitar, continuing to quietly strum out a few melodic runs that were barely audible. His cheeks were flushed from singing and he felt out of breath, but it didn't matter. He'd proved himself right.  
  
"Seriously, you've got a pretty good little handle on that thing. I don't get a lot of people like that." She grinned. " _Every_ vocal student plays guitar, of course, doncha know,” she said dryly, “but it...I don't know, it suits you."  
  
He was a happy little man right now. He couldn't help but sway a little as he picked at the strings.  
  
"We can do some work on the singing, though. But I guarantee that by the end of the semester? I can make you golden."  
  
"That so?" Phil drawled. He glanced up at her, his smirk widening a little. "You sound pretty sure of yourself."  
  
"Well, it helps that I have some pretty good raw material." She stood up and smoothed her hands over herself, brushing wrinkles out of the sundress she was wearing. There was a sweater hanging on the back of her chair, something he figured she probably had grabbed to make her outfit a little more business-friendly, but it was too damn muggy in these offices to care, especially when there weren't any windows they could open. He wasn't gonna complain, anyway. The woman had some nice hips. "I'm emphasizing the word _raw,_ though. You look a little too pleased with yourself."  
  
He chuckled as he looked down again. "Sorry. I get a little big-headed sometimes."  
  
"It's that music. You get a little more vibrant when you're singing. I think it brings you out of your shell a little more."  
  
He shrugged. Glanced up at her legs when she started walking to where she'd laid down her copy of the chart and lyrics he'd provided her with. She picked them up and considered them, her lips moving as she whispered something to herself, before she nodded. "All right. Do it again."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Mm-hmm. I'm gonna look for problem areas this time." She gestured even as she leaned back against her desk and focused on him. "Go ahead, any time you're ready."  
  
He went ahead and strummed out the opening chords, beginning to sing softly. "Anthony works in a grocery store, savin' his pennies for someday..." As he sang, he felt her eyes on him like hands, watching every part of him, and he felt himself standing up a little taller, trying to tap his foot a little less, anything that he thought might irritate her. Just tried to focus on performing the song straight. Maybe he could impress her all over again, right? Make the lessons a hell of a lot easier on him or something.  
  
He'd barely finished the first verse before she said, "All right, good" and held up a hand. He glanced up. Miss Testone was staring somewhere at the area of his chest, and he quirked a brow. "Your breathing. That's what I'm hearing." She tapped her own shoulders a few times. "You're breathing through your shoulders, and that's _incredibly_ inefficient. The Good Lord gave you lungs, boy, and they're _here,_ " she said, tapping her sides instead, "not in your shoulders. They're not even /connected/ to your shoulders. Those things shouldn't be moving an inch." Next her hands went to the curve of her stomach. "Take a second. Inhale as deep as you can, right here, right in your gut. Don't worry, I won't think you're fat."  
  
He chuckled despite himself, but slung the guitar over his shoulder so she could watch him. He breathed in, looked up for her approval.  
  
"Good. Very good. Okay. Do that a few times. Three times. That's great. Perfect. Now, gimme the guitar." She held out a hand, and Phil tentatively passed the instrument over, only relaxing when he saw she had a firm, familiar grip on the bridge. He couldn't help but wonder if she played at all. "I want you to sing the verse again, but _this_ time, focus on your breathing. Make sure you're breathing from your gut, not your shoulders."  
  
He began again. But as he sang, he kept getting distracted by little things. Her red nails on the bridge of his guitar. Her fan blowing at his hair. Dumb stuff like that. He'd barely sang two lines when she shook her head. "No, your _gut,_ Phil. Those shoulders of yours are doing jumping jacks or something. Try again."  
  
He did.  
  
"Wrong. _Again._ "  
  
He _did._  
  
" _Wrong._ "  
  
At this point he was getting irritated, testy. He breathed just fine. What the hell was her problem? He dragged a hand through his hair. "The hell am I doing wrong?"  
  
"You're doing exactly what I'm telling you _not_ to do, that's what," she shot back. "Maybe you need a little demonstration." She set his guitar down on the couch, stepped forward, and turned her back to him. "Put your hands on my sides."  
  
He quirked a brow. "What?"  
  
"My sides. Touch my sides. Don't be bashful. You're not gonna get expelled or something, not this late in the game."  
  
He hesitated as he lifted his hands. He was tentative. There wasn't any clear guideline about where exactly he was supposed to place them, what was too high or too low. He finally placed them just a little above her waist, his cheeks flaming red as he did so.  
  
"Higher. C'mon, just a little higher. You're not gonna feel it there."  
  
He slid his hands higher, but though it made him feel flustered, she didn't sound any worse for wear. She didn't stop him until his thumbs could feel the thick band of her bra, until his fingers were just a few centimeters away from the beginning of the curve of her breasts. Phil swallowed and studied the wall, dealt with the familiar buzz that women always gave him, worked his hardest to push it away.  
  
"All right, good. Now, I want you to feel this." When she inhaled, he noticed her shoulders didn't move, not even a hair, but his hands lifted as her ribs did. "Anthony works in a grocery stoooore..." She held the line out what felt like indefinitely as her sides kept pushing in, in, in, and finally when they didn't move anymore she still kept going. He wondered if her stomach was the thing deflating now. When she finally brought the line to a close, he estimated she'd held it for twenty to twenty-five seconds with only the slightest tremble of vibrato. She glanced over her shoulder, her expansive curls almost tickling his nose. "You hear that? How much air I had? I could've sang two-thirds of that verse on one breath if I wanted to."  
  
"Yeah," he said absently, unsure if she needed a response or not.  
  
"Okay. Now, listen." And then she sang the line again, but this time her sides didn't move. It was her shoulders. She held the line for about six seconds before she started petering out and finally died into nothing. "There. See that? Pathetic." She turned to face him, and he quickly dropped his hands to his sides. "Look, I can tell you've got an epic lung capacity. You're already doing these phrases super well. But why would you wanna make yourself work three times as hard when you can do it another way, a _simpler_ way?"  
  
She had a point. Phil hated to admit that he was wrong, but she really did have a point.  
  
She flashed him a smile. "All right. Now you do it." This time she came around behind him, and he watched her over his shoulder until she got in place, until she pressed her warm hands against his ribs and made a shiver run down his spine. "Make my hands move."  
  
It felt so freaking unnatural, but this time when he inhaled he forced his ribs to expand. He realized, as he did so, that he hadn't even moved his stomach an inch. He experimentally inhaled a little more, felt his gut expand, and for a moment was caught by just how full he felt, by how expanded he was. "Good," Miss Testone murmured. And then he began to sing.  
  
He wasn't even half out of breath by the time he finished the first line, even though he fit the first two sentences together. It was incredible. She let him sing the whole first verse, saying quiet encouragement the whole time, and right at the end, Phil challenged himself. He did the whole last few lines on one breath, one double lungful of air, and only on the last few lines did he begin to feel the strain on his chest, feel that he was running out of air like he was underwater. He exhaled sharply in surprise, a little breathy laugh, and turned to face her with a bright smile.  
  
She was already beaming at him. "Pretty cool, huh?"  
  
"Yeah. Yeah, I guess so," he said with another chuckle, rubbing the back of his neck.  
  
"Maybe you'll listen next time." She was teasing him. He decided he liked that. "Look, we're pretty much out of time. You don't wanna be late to class."  
  
Class? Fuck class. He wanted to learn some more of this. But he had a feeling she wouldn't go for that. He huffed out a long sigh, but began gathering his things obediently. Miss Testone had gone back to her computer, was typing a few things in that he thought might be related to his current grade, and when he glanced up at her he licked his lips. "Uh...Miss Testone?"  
  
She stiffened a little. When she looked at him her eyes were brimming with mirth. "What did you just call me?"  
  
His eyes widened. "Isn't that your name?"  
  
"Part of it, I guess, but Jesus, that makes me feel old." She laughed. "You're the only student who calls me that so far. Please, stick to Elise. I don't even have a teaching degree yet."  
  
Phil nodded. "Elise. Got it."  
  
She cocked an eyebrow. "Well? What did you need?"  
  
He blinked. He stared. And then he looked away, cheeks flushing. "I, uh...I can't even remember."  
  
She chuckled and shook her head. "I had no idea I was that intimidating," she teased again.  
  
He got out of there as fast as he could this time.  
  
  
~~~  
  
  
"Do you do any songwriting?"  
  
Phil nodded. "Yeah, off and on." Binders full, really, but she probably didn't need to know that. "My brother-in-law and I are pretty close. We do some writing when we see each other."  
  
Elise smiled. "I'd love to hear some of it."  
  
"Naw, it probably ain't no good."  
  
"Listen to yourself!" She laughed. "What happened to Mister Big Head in here a couple of weeks ago, strutting around like a rooster?"  
  
He shrugged and looked away, but he couldn't hold back a little smile. "Yeah, well..."  
  
"C'mon. Play me something. Anything."  
  
Well, he couldn't turn down a request like that, now could he? He sat his guitar carefully in his lap and considered, his head cocked to the side, before he glanced down at the strings and began to pluck out a line. "...you broke my heart and picked the pieces, threw them in the fire to burn, left me cold out in the rain..." Now that he had the feel of the strings, the tempo in his blood, he could close his eyes and trust his fingers with the rest. "...but now I'm moving on without you, baby, without you by my side. I'm finally feeling free..." The chords were relatively simple once you got the rhythm. He began to tap his foot. He became distantly aware of the fact that his teacher was doing the same. "...but I know that...the sun will shine for me, even when skies are gray...and I feel like I'm...missing something, but the bridges build their own way..."  
  
"I know you moved on without me, girl, but I still think...how the time moves so fast." Here was where the music got caught up in his bones. He began to sway, to move his hips, even as he sat, just 'cuz he couldn't sit still. It was impossible. If he tried, he'd suffocate. "I still think of how the world, it goes around and round and round, but it all stopped when you said..." He shook his head. "...not for now." And then a soft vocalization, more a growl than anything, a soft keening that slipped past his lips before he was even aware of it. "But I know that...the sun will shine for me, even when skies are gray...and I feel like I'm...missing something, but the bridges build their own way." He played with the tempo, let a syncopation pour off his lips, without even thinking. It was instinct. It _all_ was. "Like the ocean washes the sand to the shore, you're like the sun that slips away...lips that taste of an angel, and eyes that bring me to my knees, and a smile that could set me free...so follow me..."  
  
A heavy silence hung over the room after the final chord finished ringing, after the strings settled back into silence, but Phil was reluctant to come back to the present. He finally heaved a sigh before opening his eyes and locking them with Elise's. She wasn't smiling. No, she was looking at him in a way that he'd never seen before. He couldn't pick it apart, even as he stared back. She looked at him like...like he was a mystery. A piece of art in a museum that nobody could figure out. Like she never really wanted to look away.  
  
That last thought gave him pause. He was reading too much into this, letting his thoughts get away with themselves. He knew better than that.  
  
"...did you write that about somebody?" she finally asked.  
  
He nodded. "Yeah, uh...yeah. An old girlfriend from high school. Her name was Hazel."  
  
She nodded in response. "I could tell. You were... _alive_ when you sang that. You understood it. It came out from the core of you."  
  
It should. He had a lot of heavy memories surrounding that girl. This was maybe the one song he'd written in high school that was worth anything, really, all because of that. He looked down at his guitar, but though he had a habit of absently playing quiet lines even when they were just sitting, talking, he couldn't get his fingers to move now. They just rested limply against the strings.  
  
"I'm going to be honest with you, Phil, just like I ask you to be with me. You ready?"  
  
He looked up. He nodded.  
  
"You've got...a gift. You really do. I don't say that lightly." She leaned forward and tented her hands, touching them to her lips as she thought. "...when you let yourself go, when you really feel that music instead of just trying to do so, you take over the room. And you know what I think?"  
  
He didn't. He was too busy staring at her, spellbound by her words, his chest expanding.  
  
"I think you're damn close to getting to where you could get noticed."  
  
He exhaled audibly. As he looked down at the floor beneath his thick, clunky shoes, he let her words sink into the tiny crevices of his brain. Let them resonate like vibrations through guitar strings.  
  
Her chair squeaked as she came to her feet and crossed to the piano. "C'mon. Let's smooth out those vocal runs. You could kill those things if you were just a little bit smoother."  
  
  
~~~  
  
  
Phil absently picked at his hoodie as he waited for Elise to finish writing in her notebook. There was a chill in the air now as they dove deeper and deeper into Autumn, but one could never tell when they were this deep in the office. It was a furnace in here, always was, and he considered just ripping the damn thing off and lounging around in the threadbare t-shirt he was wearing under it. Elise herself was wearing a black button-down shirt, snug as anything, with the sleeves rolled up a few times along her arms, just enough to show off a series of tinkly silver bracelets all in a row.  
  
"You're quiet," Elise said.  
  
Phil shrugged as he wandered over to the wall and studied a picture of Elise. It was a snapshot, maybe from a Polaroid, of her at the end of a performance. She was gleaming with sweat, her hair pulled back into a rather messy ponytail, and she was clothed in a dress that made her legs look ten miles long. She was lovely, absolutely beaming. He found himself wondering how long ago the picture was taken, if it was maybe after her own senior recital when she was a student here. "You're busy. I didn't wanna interrupt."  
  
"You never interrupt me, Phil."  
  
He smiled, though he kept his back to her.  
  
He heard the notebook shut and the pencil plop down on the cover. "So what's up?"  
  
He shrugged again. "I'unno. Was just thinking about some stuff."  
  
"Yeah? You gonna enlighten me?"  
  
"Maybe."  
  
Elise chuckled. "You're stubborn. Always always stubborn."  
  
Maybe a little, but mostly he just didn't know how she was gonna react to his idea, and that didn't sit well with him. He liked having some general sense of what he was going into, after all. "...yeah, well, I've...I've been thinking about how you never got that spot before mine filled with another student, right?"  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"And I've really...been improving a lot since these lessons started. Right?"  
  
"Of course."  
  
Good. He felt a little more confidence swell inside of him. "...well, I just...look, I know we're not supposed to do this, but...is there any way you might consider doing an hour-long lesson with me instead? I know we're like halfway through the semester and I can't afford to _pay_ for an hour in my tuition, not with the other classes I'm taking, but I just...I really feel like I'm not getting anything going on my own. I need you there to kick my butt a little longer, you know?"  
  
Elise was quiet for a long moment, and he didn't want to look at her, to see what was going to be in her gaze. He was already embarrassed enough just by asking. But when she inhaled, he still found himself listening like he'd never listened in his life. "You know what? Sure. We can do that."  
  
He spun around to look at her, eyes huge. "Seriously?"  
  
"Yeah." She shrugged, slowly smiling. "Why not? I don't have anything better to do, right?"  
  
"Well, I mean, I don't know about that." He chuckled. "So I can...come in at two instead of two-thirty? That's cool?"  
  
"Cooler than cool. Seriously. I really don't care. You've got some incredible potential, Phil. More than a lot of my performance students do. There's just something...raw and untapped about you. I wanna see how far you can go with a little extra time every week."  
  
He was giddy. He wanted to do a little dance, but he didn't think that would be too cool. He settled for running a hand through his hair and exhaling as he stared straight at the wall. "...okay. Okay."  
  
"I'm glad you asked. Hey, I had a little idea after last week. You know, when I made you put the guitar down for a minute?"  
  
Oh, right. He wasn't cool, actually. He was the opposite of cool. He cleared his throat. "Yeah?"  
  
"And you sort of thrashed around like you were having a seizure when you tried to sing?"  
  
"Okay, I get it," he said with a little chuckle.  
  
"Yeah, that!" She grinned at him unrepentantly. "Well, I had an idea. Hold on just a sec..." When she stood up and began reaching for something in the cabinet above her desk, he noticed the shirt fit her a little more snugly than he thought, especially in the bust. The button right across the chest was tighter than it should have been, and he realized vaguely that it meant as she moved the opening between it and the button above it widened a little. The vague realization began to bleed into something else when he focused a little more, caught a glimpse of something purple through the widened space.  
  
Lace, he began to comprehend. Lace around the edge of one of the cups of her br-  
  
It all came into stunning clarity like a truck hit him: the purple lace around the black bra, the peach of her skin, the swell of her breast, all combining into a crack of a shockwave exploding in his head.  
  
He stared. He let the buzz build up behind his eyes, because he was pretty sure that something in his brain had fizzled and short circuited, that he didn't have the capacity to look away until he got tuned up at a mechanic or something. He exhaled softly, barely audibly, before he finally managed to snap his eyes away.  
  
"Here we go. This damn tape recorder, always hiding from me..." Elise set it on the desk. "All right, look, I want you to practice for the rest of the week singing without your guitar. I wanna see if you can get yourself to relax at all between now and your next lesson before we really get down and dirty with working on it."  
  
He swallowed. "Okay."  
  
"And I _also_...wanna get you away from the guitar a little more than that. I wanna see how you do if someone else plays and you sing. A different instrument, you know? A different feel." She made her way to the piano and set the tape recorder on it. "So we don't have much time to go through it right now, but I wanna record that song you did last week, record me playing it here, and have you use that to practice with, so you're familiar with the feel and the drive before you come back. That sound good?"  
  
"Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great."  
  
"Perfect!"  
  
His eyes strayed back to her. He was suddenly infinitely aware of the fullness of her legs, the curve of her rear end, the elegant angles of her shoulders. He knew them too well. He wondered if his subconscious had been memorizing the shape of her, maybe replaying it in his sleep.  
  
"Only problem is I don't know that song so well," she said with a chuckle. "I've got the chords from that copy you gave me, but I don't really...it's a little messy, you know? A little hard to read how the chords correspond to the words."  
  
"I can rewrite it," he said quickly.  
  
"No no, it's fine! I'm just gonna need your help." She set up the chord sheet and waved vaguely behind her back for him to come up. He approached her, studying the slope of her neck. "I want you to sing along." A pause. "No, no, that won't work." She sighed as she collected her hair and shoved it over one of her shoulders. Phil began to drum his fingers against his thigh in a feverish rhythm. "...look, I don't want you to be able to hear yourself singing on the tape. It's supposed to just be the piano, so you're not distracted by hearing yourself sing or something. So I need you to come up real close...and just sing the words in my ear, okay? So that way I can stay on track with the song while I'm playing. Does that make sense?"  
  
"I...I think so."  
  
"Just get super close and sing as quietly as you can." She looked up at him with a grin. "Relax. I don't bite. You know me well enough by now to know that."  
  
He didn't really know what he knew anymore. But he nodded.  
  
Elise looked back at the chords, played a few quickly in practice before she nodded. "Ready?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"All right. I'll start the intro," she said just before she pushed the Record button. And then she began to play.  
  
The chords were thick. Lush. Sexy. He considered the shape of her hands as she formed each one, the litheness of her fingers, the touch she showered the piano keys with. When she glanced toward him, jerked her head downward a little, he began to draw close. She looked back at the chordsheet without hesitation. He stood close enough that his chest was almost flush against her back, and only then did he lean over, until his lips almost brushed her ear. A wave of lilacs exploded from her neck, her hair, everywhere, and he breathed it all in greedily just before he began to sing. "The world was on fire...and no one could save me but you...strange how desire will make foolish people do..." He touched a hand to her piano bench to stabilize himself, his fingers an inch away from her thigh. "No, I never dreamed that I'd...meet somebody like you. And I never dreamed that I'd...love somebody like you..." He thought he might be being too loud. He softened his voice, until it was barely a growl. "No, I don't wanna fall in love...no, I don't...wanna fall...in love...this world's gonna break your heart. Nobody's fallin' in love..."  
  
She was more confident with the chords now. He had a feeling that she could carry it out from here, especially since there was no bridge, since the verses and chorus had the exact same melodic line to them, but...there was always a chance he was wrong, wasn't there? No. He'd stay here. He'd help her through it. "What a wicked game to play...to make me feel this way..." His eyes drifted over her profile. "What a wicked thing to do...to let me dream of you..." Down her neck. Watched her pulse flutter. "What a wicked thing to say...you never felt this way.." Down her breasts, down further still. His hand curled into a loose fist beside her thigh. "What a wicked thing to do...to let me dream of you..."  
  
Her fingers faltered for a moment, just a moment of a tripped-up and ruined chord, before digging into the keys again with a vengeance.  
  
"No, I don't...wanna fall in love...no..." There was a hint more color in her cheeks now, wasn't there? "...no, I don't wanna fall in love..." Her lips were parting. She was breathing faster. "...this world's gon' break your heart. Nobody's fallin' in love...no, nobody's fallin' in love..."  
  
Maybe still too loud. Especially since the chords for this last verse were supposed to be soft, almost unnoticeable. His words were husky, more breathed than sang. "...the world was on fire, and no one could save me but you..." He just caressed the words. Barely even touched them with his tongue before letting them go. "Strange how desire will make foolish people do..." Tasted them. Savored them. Shared them with her, where she could taste them too. "...no, I never dreamed that I'd...love somebody like you...and I never dreamed that I'd lose somebody like you..."  
  
Just as he was getting ready to move into that last chorus, just as his body was burning for it, he leaned a little too close. The last three words of the verse came out almost as an afterthought as his lips brushed the shell of her ear, made something just under his skin explode, and as Elise brought the song to a sudden abrupt halt Phil slammed his mouth shut before his tongue could dart out and taste her skin.  
  
They hovered there for a moment, her staring at the piece of paper, Phil so close he could feel her body heat bleeding through her clothes. And then he touched his hand to her back, felt the curves of her skin. "You all right?" he asked softly.  
  
Elise shot into action. She stopped the recording, scooting forward until his hand cupped nothing but thin air, and busied herself with studying the chordsheet again. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. I was...I was just thinking of that...chord I messed up."  
  
He tilted his head to the side. One of her curls brushed against his nose. "We could record it again."  
  
" _No._ " Silence. "...no. No, I think you'll get the idea. It doesn't have to be perfect. It's not a single or something, you know?"  
  
She was rambling. He nodded. Though his body fought him every step of the way he backed up, gave her room to breathe again.  
  
"Anyway, you know the song better than I do, and as long as I kept the right tempo, I think you'll be okay."  
  
Another nod. He reached up, tugged at the neck of his hoodie to cool his overheated body.  
  
"Next week. Next week at two instead of two-thirty. Right?"  
  
"Mm." He grabbed his backpack and slung it over his shoulder, his skin itching, his muscles aching.  
  
" _Hey_ , and I, umm...I forgot, I was gonna..." She got the tape out of the tape recorder and held it in her hands, passing it from one to the other. "I'm doing a gig on Friday night. Downtown, at Emerald Bar and Grill. You ever been there?"  
  
He shook his head. He watched her face even though she was so reluctant to look at him.  
  
"Yeah, well, I'm going on in the bar at around ten o' clock. Hour long set, maybe, maybe a little longer if they let me do an encore. I don't know. We'll see. But I think you should come. The owner, his name is Mike, and he's really cool. I wanna introduce you guys, see if maybe he wants to have you play sometime."  
  
He nodded. Music didn't sound that important right now, to be honest, but his interest was peaked at the thought of hearing her sing, watching her perform. Seeing her in her element. "I'll be there."  
  
She finally met his eyes. She held them for a long moment, just long enough to be on the line between awkward and inappropriate, before she shoved the tape into his hands and made her way back to her desk.  
  
Phil had accidentally found the unigender handicapped restroom sometime during his first day of wandering around the music building. He went straight there, dropped his things, locked the door and leaned against it, his head turned toward the sky and his eyes closed and his hand working.  
  
He was terribly late to his next class.  
  
  
~~~  
  
He debated long and hard about Emerald Bar and Grill for the rest of the week. He got all his homework done in advance, just in case, and spent most of Friday night in his apartment, throwing darts at his dartboard. He considered picking at his guitar, maybe even doing that whole practice thing that Elise wanted him to do before his lesson on Monday, but anything relating to music felt too raw. His skin felt new, unblemished, easily chafed, and the innate sensuality of music was too much for it to handle.  
  
When it came right down to it, when 9:45pm rolled around, he knew he couldn't stay away. She was expecting him. She wanted to give him an opportunity to perform, to be heard. And, really, the opportunity to see her like that picture he'd seen on her wall, to hear her the way he'd heard her right before his first lesson, was irresistible.  
  
He dressed with care. The gray button-down that fit him sleekly, a few buttons undone at the top. Jeans that hugged his thighs, exposed the strength of the muscles there. A touch of cologne on his wrists and the pulse points on his neck, as understated as he could make it. And then he set out.  
  
When he opened the restaurant's door he heard the growl of her voice before he noticed anything else. Rough like sandpaper. Smooth like honey. Constant duality, fighting with each other to reign supreme. He waved off the hostess who greeted him, gestured vaguely to the bar, and made his way in. He felt a little ridiculous, sticking to the shadows like he was, but he wanted a chance to watch her without being watched back. He wanted to know what she was really like.  
  
When he finished climbing the stairs he saw her there, in the full light of the stage, right behind the mic stand. Her black dress fit so intimately to her curves that he felt his blood rush just a little faster from considering it. Her calf muscles were strong and full, emphasized from her stilettos, and just for a second he saw a flash of a dream he'd had the night before, one of her naked body against his, her only stitch of clothing those tall, black stilettos, them digging ever so slightly into his back as she wrapped her legs around his waist.  
  
He looked at the bartender and ordered a beer to cool him down.  
  
She was a fucking siren tonight. Her hand skimmed down the mic stand like she was caressing a lover. She teased and flirted with the crowd like she'd been doing it her whole life. At one point the whole band dropped out, left her only with the pianist, and she didn't hesitate to drape herself over the grand piano, to be a singer plucked straight out of the Jazz Age.  
  
But even then, even as she seduced the entire crowd out of their pants and their tips, there was something more to her. There was the sheer amount of skill she had. Even in just the short time he'd been taking these hardcore vocal lessons, he'd begun to recognize some of the more difficult techniques, and she seemed to be mastering them all. Her vocal runs, for instance, no matter how long or complicated, were so smooth, so pitch-perfect, that part of him was green with envy. And at the same time, she didn't feel the need to rely on those runs to show off any alleged mastery. She'd hold out notes at the ends of phrases just the same, hold them out so beautifully and firmly. It was a breath of fresh air compared to most pop starlets that he heard these days on the radio.  
  
She was the real deal, he was realizing. She really was. Here she was building up his confidence, trying to shove him into the musical world, and she was the one who belonged there instead.  
  
He sat there spellbound for an hour, drinking two beers, watching the way she charmed both the people on the dance floor and the people in their seats, and when she'd sang her final song he applauded just as loudly as anyone else. He watched her descend the stage, accept the compliments that people gave her, but between every person that came up to speak to her he saw how she was looking around, scanning the crowd, tucking her hair behind her ear in a sort of anxiety.  
  
She was looking for _him._  
  
He took the last of his beer, gulped it down to the dregs, before sliding off his stool and sauntering down to the end of the bar, right where she was approaching with her eyes cast over her shoulder. She nearly jumped out of her skin when she turned her head just in time to see him before she ran into him. "Phil!"  
  
"Hey." He gave her a smile.  
  
"It's good to see you!" She was glowing. Absolutely glowing. Riding high on the last hour, hour and a half. God, he understood that. He felt a sudden craving to taste that success for his very own, especially when the adrenaline was rolling off of her, colliding into him. "Did you get here in time for the show? What'd you think?"  
  
"You kick ass."  
  
Elise laughed, tucking a few heavily hairsprayed locks of hair behind her ear. "Succinct but to the point, as always." She beamed up at him. "I'll introduce you to Mike when he comes out. He's in the back doing something in the kitchen, but he's bound to be back eventually." She flicked her eyes over him, and Phil felt his heart beat a little faster. "You look nice. Very professional."  
  
'Professional' was sort of the opposite of what he was going for, but he guessed he'd accept that for now. It was better than 'fugly.' "Thanks." He couldn't help but look her over as well. "You look...incredible."  
  
There was a moment of silence, and when he met her eyes again he realized she was watching him with that strange look again, the mystery look, the one he still didn't understand. "Thank you," she finally said with a softened smile. "I try."  
  
 _You succeed. All the time._ Phil cleared his throat and looked at the bar. "Can I get you anything? A glass of wine?"  
  
"Oh, I don't know if that's such a good idea..."  
  
"C'moooon, you earned it, didn't you? You killed that show."  
  
She looked around for a few moments. "...well, if you insist," she murmured, meeting his eyes again with a smile.  
  
He did buy her that glass of wine. He bought her two, actually, and leaned up against the bar beside her as she drank them. They talked about everything and nothing, from music to puppies, and as the hour went on he realized she was looking around less and watching him more. And not just in the direct ways. He'd, say, look at the clock above the bar, and he'd suddenly see her turn her head in his peripheral vision, see her look him over from head to toe. He'd hold himself a little steadier, just enough to emphasize the muscles in his arms and legs, the narrowness of his hips, the breadth of his shoulders, and she'd watch until he'd start to turn his head to look at her again.  
  
By the time an hour had passed his senses were so on overload that he was burning alive. He finally managed to catch her eye with a little smirk when she finished her second glass of wine. "...wanna dance?" he asked, tilting his head toward the nearby pulsing speaker.  
  
She should have immediately said no. Shaken her head, said she had to get home, something. But instead she hesitated, and that meant Phil was able to hold her gaze, to let his eyes drip for just a moment down to her lips, to let his eyelids droop and his smirk widen. And suddenly she was saying "Sure."  
  
When he extended his hand, she took it, and he led her down to the floor, weaving through the other couples that came and went. He spun her in a circle before he let her hand go, and by the time she was facing him again she was already grinning from ear-to-ear. Something told him that she was a woman who liked to dance. He wasn't disappointed.  
  
The woman was a hypnotist, and her weapon was her hips. She used them like a goddamn Shakira clone, swaying them, spinning them, using them to draw his eyes to her ass over and over again. He was dizzy just trying to keep up with her tempo. She was working him into a rabid frenzy and she didn't even realize it.  
  
His eyes drifted up. No. No, she realized it. He saw it in the little smirk she had on her face as she turned her back to him, threaded her fingers in her hair, pulled it up to expose the long, graceful shape of her neck.  
  
There were so many words he wanted to whisper in her ear right then. Minx. Tease. Goddess. But she had his tongue caught, so thick in his throat that he could barely swallow. She had his blood turning to wine. She had every little thing about him quieting, running, focusing right on every move she made. And maybe that was why he felt himself get pulled forward, felt his hands stretch out, felt his palms rest in the valley of her waist.  
  
Elise turned her head, just enough to see him from the corner of her eye, and he lifted his gaze with a quiet, shaky sigh. She didn't move closer. But she didn't step away either. No, when he looked at her eyes, he saw the same kind of haze that was stretching over his own brain, the one that made the chemicals in their body explode and the pheromones fly in every direction.  
  
He slid his hands down, let them swell out over her moving hips, let his thumbs ghost ever so slightly over the curve of her rear end. And then he moved forward until their hips met, until she could feel just a hint of what she'd churned up in him pressing against her.  
  
A sharp roar blasted through his ears when she suddenly pressed back.  
  
And then, just as suddenly, she was stepping away, smoothing her hands over her hair, marching straight toward the bar, and Phil watched as this time, when she glanced over her shoulder, she was tentative. Reluctant. Gone.  
  
She stopped at the side of a man – a quite good-looking man, he realized with a certain amount of trepidation – and began chatting with him, giving him the same beaming smiles she'd given Phil. She waved Phil over and he went, mostly because he didn't know how to do anything else right now.  
  
The man was Mike. Phil met Mike. Phil thought that maybe they all talked about this, that, or the other, but he really wasn't paying attention to a damn thing that any of the three of them said. And then it was over and Mike was walking away and Elise was looking up at Phil with those big brown eyes, these eyes that begged for him to forget anything had ever happened on that floor, and he found himself walking away too, because no matter what she tried to do he still had way too much pride to lie to himself.  
  
~~~  
  
He stood at Elise's office door for at least five minutes before he finally lifted his fist and knocked. The "Come in" he received in reply was quiet, barely even audible, and he hesitated yet again before pushing his way in.  
  
She was sitting at the desk, writing in her notebook, and he stood there staring, taking her all in, before he shut the door behind him and dropped his backpack to the ground. Writing. Writing writing writing. Phil frowned. "...you're quiet," he murmured.  
  
She kept on. "I'm writing."  
  
"So I see." He sat on the arm of the couch, as far from her as he could get. "And here I thought I never interrupted you."  
  
The pen slowed and finally came to a stop. She sighed. "...Mike really liked meeting you," she said softly. "He says he's more than happy to give you a chance. An audition. You could get a lot of exposure from his place, you know. He's launched a few careers entirely on accident."  
  
She wasn't looking at him. For God's sake, he just wanted her to look at him like he was a human being. "That's great. What do I need to do?"  
  
Elise moved her mouse and woke her computer, proceeded to type in what looked like Chrome. When he saw she was pulling up the restaurant's website he wandered over. Put his hand on the back of her chair, where she could feel how close he was. She didn't shy away. "Two songs. A lot of people would say to be versatile, maybe one slow and one upbeat, but I say just do your best stuff. Anything you feel comfortable with."  
  
"'Wicked Game,' maybe?" he drawled.  
  
He saw the way she licked her lips, but she still didn't look at him. "Maybe." She highlighted the phone number on the website. "Give 'em a call sometime soon. Mike's off tomorrow, but he's back in on Wednesday afternoon, he said. I'd maybe call around three o' clock or so, between the lunch and dinner crowds."  
  
As she slid her chair back, Phil took a step away, tried his hardest not to stare at her but found that each passing second made that more and more impossible. She came to her feet and began to go through notes – a lesson plan, he realized, for what she was doing with him – and he took the opportunity to look over her. A perfectly serviceable button-down shirt, not too tight, but he found himself itching to know what bra she was wearing under it. And that _skirt._ It was like she'd dressed just to drive him insane there. Soft. Flexible. Loose around her legs. All paired off with a pair of high heels – not stilettos, but damn close.  
  
"You did real well Friday night," he murmured. "Real damn well."  
  
Her shoulders tensed. "...we probably shouldn't talk about Friday night, Phil."  
  
"Why not?" He cocked his head to the side. "You killed it. I had a great time just watching you."  
  
"Because it wasn't just the music. You and me both know that."  
  
He was quiet for a moment. "...ain't it interesting that I'm just talking about the music...and you're trying to bring up everything else."  
  
She tilted her head back as she dropped her hands to her waist. He couldn't tell if it was exasperation or exhaustion. And then finally, _finally,_ she turned to face him. As she set the lesson plan down on top of a large stack of papers right at the edge of her desk, she met his eyes, and his breath caught in his chest. "You know what? Fine. Let's do it, then. Let's clear the air. You wanna start?"  
  
Funny how he'd spent this whole time wanting to look at her eyes and now he had to look away.  
  
"Because, hey, maybe we can just talk it out. Maybe nothing happened. You ever think of that?"  
  
He looked at the wall and ground his teeth together.  
  
"Maybe you don't even have a reason to come in here and look at me like...like...like _that._ "  
  
"Like what?"  
  
"Like you wanna eat me alive." She crossed her arms over her chest. "Like you're about to burst out of your skin."  
  
Like he was about to burst into flames.  
  
“Because I gotta tell you, Phil, I just...I just don't know if I can keep away from...”  
  
He stood there. He stared at the wall. And then he swept his arm over her desk, sent every damn piece of paper flying, and whirled around to wrap his arms around her.  
  
He pulled her into an almost punishing kiss, half-expecting her to push him away and expel him on the spot, but no, she grabbed him _back._ She grabbed that collar of his and pulled him closer still, until he fit against every curve of her body, until his balls were tingling just from feeling her breasts pressed against his chest. He exhaled sharply against her lips as he spun them around and pushed until she perched on her desk, until she could tighten her thighs around his and he could cup her rear end, drag her close until he could almost press his hardness against her.  
  
He'd moved enough pieces forward here. He might've just been content kissing her, tasting her, ravishing her mouth with his tongue, but the second she grabbed his wrist and brought it around to touch her ribs, right where he could feel her panting harder than she had during any breathing lesson she'd given him, he felt a painful shockwave shoot into his palm. She let his fingers brush against the shape of her bra, just like she had before, but _God,_ it meant so much more now. He pulled back from the kiss just a centimeter, just enough that his lips still brushed hers when he whispered. "Can I?"  
  
"Please," she whispered back.  
  
He stroked the curve of her breast, from the bottom up, and felt her shiver. "Can I take this off?" he felt the need to clarify.  
  
"Wait, stop, what if...what if someone comes-" He choked her words when he rolled his thumb over her nipple, felt it harden straight through her shirt. "Get this fucking thing off me _right now._ "  
  
His fingers were too clumsy for buttons right now, but somehow he got the first few undone, managed to open it just enough for him to cup her breast, to pull back the lace of her bra – that glorious black bra with that purple lace – so he could lathe her nipple with his tongue. She arched with a strangled curse, spat out that whispered "Fuck!" and he was more than happy to suck the whole thing into his mouth when she dragged her nails through his hair, pulled his head all the closer.  
  
He was desperate to touch her. His hands were burning alive, melting clean off his skeleton, and the only way to cool them down was to run them all over her body, to map out every curve until he knew their every dimension by feel. But he wasn't alone in this. He groaned against her breast when Elise pulled up the hem of his shirt and shot her hands up his spine. Skin-on-skin. He needed that. _Needed_ it. He rubbed his stubbled cheek against the soft curve of her chest, brought one of his hands to the small of her back and pulled until she was flush against him.  
  
Too close, she seemed to say, and every hair on his body stood on end when she pushed him back an inch, when her hands skidded down his chest and began working suddenly at his belt. This was happening. This was really fucking happening. He pressed his forehead into the curve of her neck and shoulder, panted against her skin, and the second she got his pants open he closed his eyes tightly in preparation, just waiting for that sensory explosion.  
  
"Holy _shit,_ " he groaned as little stars burst right behind his eyes. No. No, he hadn't been prepared for that at _all._ Not for how her hand wrapped so perfectly around him, for the heat of her palm contrasted with the cold of her bracelets that touched him every time she reached the base of him, for the way she knew just how much pressure to apply with every movement she gave. He wanted to cry out. He wanted to scream the fucking roof off of this place, but he couldn't, could he? He sank his teeth into the skin of her neck and fed on the gasp she gave, sucked at her skin desperately every time she pulled her way back to the tip.  
  
His palms were vibrating. They were buzzing all the way into his fingers. He couldn't just sit here, couldn't just take everything that Elise gave him like she was his slave. He reached blindly for her thighs and began crawling his way up them, listening to the way her breathing was catching the whole damn way. He felt the heat coming off her panties before anything else. He drew his index finger along the silk, felt the dampness that was already soaking through there, and released a shuddering sigh against her neck. He maneuvered his finger until he was bypassing her panties, until he was pressing into the slick wetness therein, until he heard her suck in a long, sharp gasp the second he slid inside of her.  
  
They were made for collaboration, he was realizing. He could match every pace, every movement, she made to a tee, until they were so flawlessly in sync that it was almost frightening. They pressed against each other, buried in each other's necks, muffling their groans against each other's skin, and just floated there, gliding through a million shades of sensation, of euphoria. Just basked in the perfect simplicity of their moving hands.  
  
But the roaring had to grow louder sooner or later. Phil couldn't quiet it down. It rose to a screaming pitch in his head, until his heart was pounding, until every cell in his body was screeching through his veins, and he squeezed his other hand around her hip. "I can't take this," he growled just before he seized both hips, lifted her in the air, and nearly tackled her into the couch. She yanked her own skirt up and he shoved her panties aside, and then he was filling her in one sharp thrust.  
  
"Fucking _hell!_ " Elise hissed, throwing back her head, opening her mouth into this beautiful silent "Oh" as Phil's hips began to move. He didn't have the patience for a slow speed, not now, not anymore. They'd had their slow. They'd had their foreplay. Now he was on the verge of exploding, and he was damn determined to drag her right there along with him. He only had the presence of mind to glance up, to make sure her head was surrounded by pillows, before he set an almost blistering pace. "I'm gonna fuck the shit out of you," he breathed. "God, I've been wanting to do this ever since I had you on that fucking piano bench."  
  
"Don't you even think about stopping," she hissed into his ear, "or I swear to God, I will fucking _murder_ you."  
  
He drowned in her with a little cry, tucked his head right back against her neck, but he didn't have the concentration, the focus, to suck at her skin for longer than a few seconds, not when she was wrapping her legs around his waist and digging those heels into him, not when she was hot and wet and squeezing around him every few thrusts just to drive him out of his mind. Not when the strangled, almost whispered moans she was making were getting louder, more frenzied with each passing second.  
  
He could feel the way she was tensing up, feel how she drove her nails into his back, and he hissed out a soft sound of approval against her neck. "C'mon, sweetheart, that's it," he whispered, dragging his wet calloused finger in tight circles around that clit of hers. "Sing for me, girl."  
  
She twisted her head until her lips brushed against his ear and crooned out the sweetest, most staggering cry he'd ever heard in his life just as she clamped down, spasmed all around him, drove him straight up the tallest tree and sent him flying into oblivion. Stars exploded and coated him in fiery heat. His ears roared like he was blasting through a wind tunnel of incredible vibrant colors. And in that moment, right as he caught her hips and felt himself rip apart and explode into a thousand different versions of Heaven, he could swear to God that somehow he was seeing music flashing before his eyes.  
  
Coming down wasn't easy. He was euphoric. He was fucking high. As Elise's face swam into view he threaded his fingers through her hair and pulled her into another heady kiss, one that made him twitch inside of her, draw out that buzzing thrill for countless seconds more, and God help her, but she gave as good as she got. She wrapped her arms greedily around him and kissed him like she wanted to eat him alive. He never wanted it to end. But already the more primal part of his mind was getting stamped down by the logic, the awareness, that something had happened, something that was going to shake the both of them to the core. When she finally touched her hands to his face and broke the kiss, made him give her an inch or two of room, Phil could barely catch his breath. He stared into her eyes as she flicked them around the room. She was coming back faster than him. He didn't want that. He wanted to kiss her again, but right at that moment she began to sit up and he forced himself to comply with her wishes.  
  
When they were level again on the couch she gently pushed his chest, made him scoot away a whole cushion, before coming unsteadily to her feet. Her high heels teetered for a moment, but though he was prepared to catch her she didn't fall. She simply smoothed her skirt back down, obliterated every wrinkle he'd put into it, like that had never happened. And then she began to cross the room, her back to him, her hands working at buttoning her shirt.  
  
Phil watched her. When he put himself back together and zipped his fly, he noticed how she didn't even flinch. "...now what?" he finally whispered, because there wasn't anything else to say, not when that had just happened, not when every cell in his body was buzzing to grab her, to press her against the wall, to surge straight into Round Two, because God, he never wanted to be more than a few inches away from her ever again, not when she made his body explode like that. Not when she made his heart pound like this.  
  
Elise lowered her head in silence. The clock ticked mindlessly. Finally she spoke. "...you find yourself another teacher."  
  
His heart sparked in alarm. "What?"  
  
She turned her head, eyed him from the corner of her eye. "Look, we crossed a boundary today." Paused. "...no, we...we crossed it weeks ago. And I'm not talking about the bar. It was before that. Back when I ignored any attraction I might've had for you and let you call me by name, and...and I wonder if there was any way we could have avoided it, really."  
  
Phil exhaled sharply. "T-there's only, what, a month of school left? Are you kidding me? I can't just...find a new teacher. I don't _want_ to."  
  
"Then you stop coming to lessons." She faced him and spread her arms wide. "Look, I've taught you all you need to know. You're golden now. You can sing and perform with the best of them-"  
  
"I don't _care_ about that right now!" He flew to his feet. " _Fuck_ music! All I care about is _this,_ right here, right now!"  
  
Her eyes widened even when her swollen lips spread into a scowl. "Don't you dare say that _ever_ again." She shook her head. "I didn't spend the past semester working my ass off with you just to hear you say something like that." She so startled him with her words that he stood there and stared as she lifted a finger and waved it at him. "You love this. You _love_ it. You light up like nothing else when you're playing that guitar and singing. And you know what else? You're good. You're _fantastic!_ You could change the face of music if you really let yourself go. Do you hear me?"  
  
Phil took a few steps forward. "How'd I look when we were making love?" he whispered, and Elise flicked her eyes up and down his face. "Did I look anything like that? 'Cuz I have a feeling I lit up like a-"  
  
"Don't you ever even consider giving up your music for someone." She shook her head. "Don't. You. Dare. Relationships come and go, but your music, that's always going to be there, right there, holding you together. I can guarantee that."  
  
"Are you scared? Is that it? Are you scared I'm gonna break your heart?"  
  
"God, you're not listening to me!" She dragged her hands through her hair, pulled at her curls, and growled. "This isn't about me, Phil! This is about _you!_ Your future!" Her eyes were on fire, and she scalded him when she turned the full force of them in his direction. "I'm not letting you get expelled this close to the end of the game because you want another fuck in my office. It's not worth it. And you know what else, it's not worth my _job_ either."  
  
"So that's it, then, huh?" Phil asked. He clenched his hands into fists. "You're just gonna shut me down. Break _my_ heart. All because you don't wanna fight for this, whatever this is."  
  
Elise gritted her teeth. And then she sighed, breathed out a sharp amount of tension, and looked at him. "I can't be your lover right now, Phil," she murmured. "There are more important things to tend to. And I can't be your mentor either, not anymore, not when we've got this...this perfect storm of chemistry between us now. It won't work. It'll destroy itself, and it'll destroy us both, because I'll never be able to be purely objective with you ever again. But do you know what?" She tilted her head to the side, her hair collected over one of her shoulders. "I'm still gonna be here in December. When you've got that diploma in your hands. When they can't shoot either of us down." She lifted a hand like she was going to touch his chest, and he felt himself leaning toward her in preparation, but she settled for pointing at him again. "And I can deal with the bullshit I'll hear from the rest of the faculty if you come find me that day."  
  
His heart was swelling up in his chest in a strange feeling of hope, but God, he was confused. He wrinkled his brow. "...but...but you said...I thought you were..."  
  
She looked exasperated, but patiently so. "Nothing's more important than your dreams, Phil. Your music. That's what I'm trying to tell you. The right person'll get that. She'll understand it to the very core of who she is, and she won't ever try to make you feel like you have to pick and choose between herself and that music."  
  
"...do you understand it?" he asked quietly.  
  
She nodded. "More than anything. I'm just trying to get you to understand it too."  
  
Phil stared at her. The flush in her cheeks was already gone. Her lips were starting to go back to their normal shape. It was like nothing had even happened. But it had. It had, and he realized that maybe it could even happen again. Just not...not right now. "...I graduate on December 18th," he murmured.  
  
"I won't be there," she said just as softly. She touched her desk. "I'll have some last minute paperwork to finish up before I put in exam grades. I'll probably be here. All day. Busy bee."  
  
He licked his lips. He nodded. "Thank you for...for teaching me. Everything."  
  
"Even when you're done with college," she said with a small smile, "there's always more to learn. And sometimes it can pay to have someone who knows the ropes along for the ride. Remember that."  
  
"I will."  
  
As he left her office, guitar and backpack on his person, he was already doing a mental countdown. Three weeks. Three weeks and two days. He thought maybe he could manage it.


End file.
